One more gigantic pic of the Behemoth and its Warcraft III orc cover art after the jump. If you do use fireworks (or break copyright law) today, do it safely, and have a great holiday!
Gallery: Orc Fireworks
Posts with tag art
Warcraft III's Orc appears on fireworks
One more gigantic pic of the Behemoth and its Warcraft III orc cover art after the jump. If you do use fireworks (or break copyright law) today, do it safely, and have a great holiday!
Breakfast Topic: Architectural wishlist
Lone of Bleeding Hollow asks when we'll see architecture, and immediately, a few other players pop up to shout out my answer: we already saw some Egyptian creatures and styles appear around Ahn'Qiraj. But his request for a specific type of architectural style is an interesting one: is there a kind of architecture you haven't seen in game yet that you'd like to?A few people say they want to see Asian architecture, and as we pointed out a little while back, Darnassus actually borrows a lot from Eastern architecture. I'd like to see a city or village in World of Warcraft with a Northeastern United States, Cape Cod kind of fishing town feel -- Booty Bay is a nice fishing town, but it's a little too far south for my personal tastes. We are heading north for Wrath, however, and since there are not one but two coastal areas open up there, I might just get my wish. Fans of Viking and Norse architecture will also get their fill in Wrath, I'll bet, and consdering the Forsaken, as Neth says in the thread, are getting their own architecture, Gothic style will also be a highlight.
Are there any styles or cultures that you'd like to see represented in Azeroth that haven't been?
World of WarCrafts: Banner of brutality
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.Show the world where your loyalties lie with this horde-riffic signage. The bold red backdrop is guaranteed to garner attention while the blood spatter technique would make even Thrall proud.
Here is what you will need:
- Wooden Frame (I used a Make Me Frameous frame from Michaels)
- Wooden Letters (I used Provo Craft Carved Letters from Michaels)
- Acrylic Paint (deep red, black)
- Fine Red Glitter
- Krylon Crystal Clear Acrylic Spray
- Paint Brush
Gallery: World of WarCrafts: Banner of brutality
Rumor: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition box
Here's some good Wrath of the Lich King rumor-juice for you tonight. Pictured to the right is what has shown up on the internet as a Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition box. I for one think it looks real. It was posted on the Paladin Schmaladin blog two months ago, although reader Allen just tipped us to it this evening.The poster over there notes that the box comes from her friend Gene, who supposedly works at a printing facility. Gene couldn't get one out of the printing factory, so instead he snapped an image of the box with his cellphone.
Through Paladin Schmaladin, we're also told that the printing press had the WotLK box orders pushed back four months. This could be an indication that Lich King will be coming out later than expected, although since Blizzard hasn't really announced a release date, we'd probably never know the difference.
Nonetheless, enjoy your nightly WotLK rumor. It looks to be a good one.
Click the image for a larger high-res version.
Blizzard's splash screen changes for June 26th
The saga of the icy splash screen continues, as the newest splash screen has just gone live on Blizzard's sites under the file name ice4.jpg. This time, the ice has cracked away even further, revealing more of the night sky, and what looks to be a face coalescing from the ice flecks and vapor in the middle of the picture. The identity of the face isn't clear, although Alex thinks it may be a Protoss Archon. We've also received this very intriguing picture from tipster Pact, which shows the face overlaid with a picture of Diablo from the Diablo 2 box. Of course, it's worth noting that it could simply be Arthas' eyes as well, peering out from his helmet.
As expected, a new rune has appeared as well, bringing the tally to four. This rune, located to the lower right of the cracking ice, looks like nothing so much as a miniature solar system model -- perhaps related to this model seen during April Fool's? Diablofans.com has suggested it may be a top-down view of an Arcane Sanctum from Warcraft 3 and WoW (You can see one at the Scryer's base in Shadowmoon) as well.
As also expected, a new piece of the strange purple monster has appeared as well. It appears to be the hindquarters of the beast. So far, I'm still sticking to my belief that it's some sort of purple penguin. This file was named 16.jpg, which, if we follow the alphabet conversion method we've been using for previous pieces, gives us the letter "P." "Powd" is the best I can get out of that. Does that mean this picture is that of a new mascot named "Powder the penguin"? As usual, you can see all of these graphics in our splash screen speculation gallery, which is constantly being updated with new speculation and analysis as the WWI draws nearer.
Gallery: June 2008 splash screen speculation
There's more analysis to come after the break.
Continue reading Blizzard's splash screen changes for June 26th
Resto4Life interviews Druid artist Andrige
I could have sworn that we interviewed Andrige here on WoW Insider, but I can't seem to find it in the archives, so I guess Resto4Life beat us to it. Phaelia has posted an interview with the artist (and machinimist) behind some of the best WoW fan art out there, and to the surprise of no one I'm sure, he seems like a fun, down to earth kind of guy.He talks about his fascination with both the Horde and Druids, why he loves Feral, and what he's been up to lately -- he's planning to do a piece of the Night Elf bear and Tauren cat fighting each other, which should be awesome. He's also awaiting the art change in Wrath of the Lich King -- like a lot of players, he's tired of the sci fi and can't wait to get back into the old sword and sorcery style. He wouldn't turn down a job at Blizzard (who would?), but he humbly says that he's got a lot of work to do before he steps up to that level. Good for him. Finally, he shares some good advice about how to make machinima (the script for his film was actually written by a few people on IRC), and a few good ideas about Druid forms. A "Runic Wolf" -- I love it.
Nice interview, and good to hear from the guy behind the art.
Figureprints raises their price
Figureprints (that company that will make a 3D mini-figurine of your character) has posted a notice on their site that they are in fact doing so well... that they're raising their price. Now, if you want a real-life copy of the character you've worked so hard on, it'll cost you $130, a $30 increase over the original price. What will the extra money buy you? They say they're stepping up production, and that they've opened up a brand new production facility on the other side of the country. But even though they say they can make more faster, they're still doing that random drawing thing -- instead of actually buying a figure, you have to enter a drawing to buy one.The other reason they cite for raising the price is that their "material costs" are much higher than they expected. Could that have to do with the fact that we've seen a lot of figure replacements in their run so far? These things can get pretty expensive when you have to make two for every other order.
Is $130 too much for you or are you still interested? From the beginning, Figureprints has been working around the clock making these, so even if they lose a little business over the higher price, maybe it'll help them keep up with demand better. And if the new price doesn't work out, maybe we'll see them cutting back again (or offering deals via Blizzard or someone else).
Gallery: First look at Figureprints
Upper Deck starts "Road to Worlds"
Upper Deck has announced the series of tournaments that will bring them down the road to the World Championships for the WoW trading card game -- "The Road to Worlds," they're calling them -- and the events began this past weekend. You can check on their website right now to see what's going down where -- odds are that if you're near a metropolitan area, there's something happening near you. These events aren't that big themselves (the prizes are a few art pieces and some extra cards, including this awesome Robotic Chicken quest card), but the big deal here is that the top two from each event move on, and eventually will try for a chance to compete in the World Championships later this year.Good luck if you do go, and as always, bring your camera and let us know if you get pictures of the events. This is the small end of Upper Deck's tournament year (things will get much bigger later on as they move towards the big Championships), but all the same, every time they show up somewhere to play cards, there's a lot of fun to be had.
WoW locations based on real-life
Most of the dances I at least recognized as their real-life counterparts, but other than maybe the Stormwind Castle (and Stonehenge -- duh), I don't think I recognized any of these overtly. Of course, the influences are there -- you can definitely see the Oriental flavor in the Night Elf architecture, and Human buildings are definitely inspired by English and French architecture, but did you know that Durnholde's wreckage compares to a ruined castle in France, or that Zul'Farrak is a take on Macchu Picchu?
Very cool finds. Definitely shows you how much Blizzard borrowed from the real world to make this fantasy setting as believable as possible.
Mondolithic Studios creates oil portraits of virtual world characters
Interesting. There's only a few samples there at the moment, but they'll probably have more when and if business picks up. The style is quite interesting -- it certainly is oil paint, but rather than going realistic, it seems like it's designed more to mimic the actual look of the game, with a few weird polygon angles and designs.
Unfortunately, there's no mention of price at all (you have to email them for estimates), but odds are it isn't cheap. Then again, if you're in search of a one-of-a-kind oil portrait of the character you've sunk so much time into, this just might be worth the money you put into it.
[Via Massively]
Singing the praises of shoulderpads
freelancer_bob (love that name) over on LJ has a good point: Shoulderpads seem to be the height of fashion in Azeroth. Not only do shoulder pieces call for the highest Arena rating in the game, but they're often the flashiest way to add a little flair to your character. While you can get the plainest of the plain before level 20, after level 70, they quickly and often turn into the wackiest thing your character can wear. Whether it's pure energy, lightning wolves, or even eyes (freakin' eyes!), Blizzard's artists seem to go overboard as much as possible, especially on the high end shoulder pieces.Sometimes it just gets out of hand -- how exactly are Hunters wearing Tier 1 supposed to use their peripheral vision? But just as Bob says, oversized and garish shoulders are a big part of what makes WoW Warcraft. If we walked around with realistic shoulder armor, the game would look that much more boring.
So here's to the praises of huge, awesome-looking shoulders. We're looking forward to a lot of stuff in Wrath of the Lich King -- the new class, the dungeons, and the new continent to wander around on. But I'm also looking forward to seeing just how the armor designers will top having blindfolded statues of women on shoulder pieces. It'll be amazing for sure.
All the World's a Stage: Free your mind
Some people don't want to worry about staying in character; they just want to come home, play a game and chill out. That's fine, they have the choice to be a regular player and do what they enjoy. But for those of us who seek the path of the roleplayer, we ought not to stop there.
We spend a lot of time in WoW doing all the same things other non-roleplayers are doing, whether it's questing, instances, or PvP. In the process, it can be easy to let one's character slowly drift away from a genuine personality, and into a mere avatar for your own personality as a gamer in a computer game. After all, your character must do a lot of things in order to progress, many of which are game-oriented goals rather than story-oriented goals. You need boss loot, Badges of Justice, Arena points and a bunch of other things that don't always translate well into very interesting character motivations.
It's easy to rely on old standby motivations so much that they become excuses. We might say, for example, "I'm trying to help the Shattered Sun Offensive to prevent Kil'Jaeden from entering Azeroth!" or "I'm hoping to attack Pathaleon the Calculator and take from him his prized sword: The Sun Eater!" And these are fine reasons for characters to do things, but we must remember, there's nothing really new or interesting about them. Every one wants to prevent disaster, or acquire new weapons -- but what about such a desire reveals who your character really is? How can you make normal gaming goals and activities into an opportunity for interesting performance and immersion in a fantasy world?
New TCG wallpaper is putrid, but in a sexy way
Blizzard has released a new wallpaper featuring exquisite artwork from the "Mias the Putrid" card from the WoW TCG. The work is just as fantastic as it was with previous TCG-themed work -- maybe even better. Well, nothing is gonna beat the Stefen Colbear thing, but still. It's fabulous.
I say it's "putrid, but in a sexy way" with tongue in cheek, of course. This evil Mias lady is half-naked. She's in chain-slave-bondage. Oh, and ... I'm not one of those guys who has all the cup sizes memorized, but I'm pretty sure that proportionally this is on the higher end. No, I'm not gushing; I actually have a point! WoW Insider has talked about sexism in WoW before, but usually we've focused on the actions and words of some male players, and not so much on things like the art style of the game or the TCG. I'm not making a judgment here; I'm just pondering.
See, when I saw this new image, I thought of a conversation I had with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago. She long since quit WoW, but she said that as a female gamer it's always a little frustrating when many of the female characters are half-naked elf-slaves with huge breasts. What a standard! But then, doesn't WoW's art style exaggerate the male characters' muscles and such, too? Ah, well. It's food for thought. Type up your two cents if you want. Or just download the wallpaper.
I say it's "putrid, but in a sexy way" with tongue in cheek, of course. This evil Mias lady is half-naked. She's in chain-slave-bondage. Oh, and ... I'm not one of those guys who has all the cup sizes memorized, but I'm pretty sure that proportionally this is on the higher end. No, I'm not gushing; I actually have a point! WoW Insider has talked about sexism in WoW before, but usually we've focused on the actions and words of some male players, and not so much on things like the art style of the game or the TCG. I'm not making a judgment here; I'm just pondering.
See, when I saw this new image, I thought of a conversation I had with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago. She long since quit WoW, but she said that as a female gamer it's always a little frustrating when many of the female characters are half-naked elf-slaves with huge breasts. What a standard! But then, doesn't WoW's art style exaggerate the male characters' muscles and such, too? Ah, well. It's food for thought. Type up your two cents if you want. Or just download the wallpaper.
The bad girls (and good girls) of Warcraft
I love this -- miladyhikara is working on a series of sketches featuring "Bad Girls of Warcraft," and the beginnings of the pieces are now up over on her deviantART page. They look fantastic -- I especially think this Shivarra looks good, but she's also got a female Naga, a Succubus, and Lady Barov herself. She says she's working on color palettes for most of them, so we'll have to wait to see the finished product -- if the sketches are any indication, they should look amazing.
She's also still asking for suggestions apparently -- who else would go in the "Bad Girls of Warcraft" series? Sylvanas? (is she really bad?) Onyxia for sure (in both forms). And she's also thinking about doing a "Good Girls of Warcraft" series, too -- hello Jaina, Tyrande and Fandral Staghelm. Wait, he's not a girl? Then why's he wearing that dress?
She's also still asking for suggestions apparently -- who else would go in the "Bad Girls of Warcraft" series? Sylvanas? (is she really bad?) Onyxia for sure (in both forms). And she's also thinking about doing a "Good Girls of Warcraft" series, too -- hello Jaina, Tyrande and Fandral Staghelm. Wait, he's not a girl? Then why's he wearing that dress?
Eddo Stern's WoW and MMO sculpture installations
Stern is supposedly playing with the virtual machismo of playing in MMOs, and how different the players supposedly are from the heroic character they're playing. Sounds like interesting stuff. While I don't really agree with his premise all that much (there are all kinds of people playing these games, and the vast majority of them don't really emulate Chuck Norris or try to pick fights on message boards), I like the techniques a lot -- those projections look pretty good. And his next project sounds even cooler: he's going to try and project a huge dimensional portal on the side of the highway in San Jose. Should be fun to see.
[Via Worldofwar.net]
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